Friday, March 20, 2009

in the kitchen with wan

i'd seen good reviews of this recipe, so i decided to give it a shot. i was intrigued by the addition of vanilla pudding mix to the batter, and picked up a box during my last grocery shopping trip. and they did turn out very nicely:

a little crispy on the edges, chewy in the middle, nice flavor. but somehow, it's still not exactly perfect. my next attempt will be using alton brown's "the chewy" recipe - which i would have already done if not for my strange reluctance to pick up a bag of bread flour. the reviews i've read of this recipe say that the bread flour is key, and all i have in the house is regular ol' all-purpose, so i guess i'll just have to bite the bullet and pick some up. i'll report later, when these are all gone. as i usually do, i halved this recipe as it was, and i still ended up with damn near four dozen cookies! s'okay, though. that only means they'll last for about four days rather than the usual two. heh.

if you have a fabulous chocolate chip cookie recipe, i'd love to hear from you. i feel like i've tried about a dozen of them in the last couple of months, but none of them are "the one." i want "the one," dang it!

oh, and those brown butter cookies i tried last week? not a hit. they smelled so delicious, but neither the hub nor i was impressed with the flavor. oh, well.

looks like rice, doesn't it? but it's not. it's just mini-me pasta. and really nice and chewy. i'm going to try another recipe to use up the rest of the box this week, for the teen. she'll probably dig it.

My perfect chocolate chip recipe is to follow the Nestle Toll House recipe on the back of the bag. Instead of butter or shortening, I use butter-flavored crisco. The cookies taste delicious and not like crisco, yet they are fluffy and they rise well. Good luck!! :)

This totally reminds me of the episode of Friends when Phoebe and Monica are trying to figure out the recipe to Phoebe's dead grandmother's PERFECT chocolate chip cookie recipe, and it ends up being Nestle Tollhouse all along.

I'm pretty devoted to Cooks Illustrated for all things food, and I've been wanting to make their "Thick and Chewy" ccc's for a long time. Here's a link to the recipe:

personally, i don't like melted butter choc. chip cookies. they come out too flat and a little greasy. i use the nestle tollhouse (shouts to phoebe...ha!) recipe with real butter that is just softened, not melted.

The perfect chocolate chip cookie is the Nestle Toll House recipe, but use two bananas instead of two sticks of butter/margarine/whatever. My brother mashes the nanners with a fork to leave a little chunk but I puree them smooth. Both versions are equally awesome.

My fat (and always hungry) coworkers beg me to make them and then act like I put $500 in their wallet when I do.

Plus - bananas instead of butter? They are HEALTHY cookies!! So that makes it okay to have 12 in one seating.